Newt’s the one who divorced one of his wives while she was battling cancer, right? Or was that someone else?
Well, we can have that discussion in another thread. But in short: I gamble. I challenge you to “easily prove” that the activity is destructive to either me or my loved ones.
What of it? Bennet made considerably more than $8 million over those same years. His family was not in want of anything. And while he could have given every cent he had to house the homeless or adopt stray cats, he is under no particular compulsion to do so, nor did he ever advocate that others do so.
First of all, it’s not “hypocritical” to accuse him of hypocrisy. It’s simply wrong.
Gambling, as he practiced it, was not an excessive or destructive vice. There is no conflict between his engaging in it and simultanously condeming other people for engaging in different behavior. The essence of hypocrisy is condemning that in which you yourself engage. Bennet did not do that. You may call him sanctimonious, a moralistic prig… the list of possible insults are endless.
But “hypocrite” is not on that list. A hypocrite speaks against a vice while engaging in that vice. It’s the definition of the word, and it doesn’t apply to Bennet.
Yep. He served her with papers while she was in her hospital room. He also bought an expensive new pick-up while several months delinquent in his child support.
Bob Barr, a rabid anti-abortion and anti-gay Congressman from Georgia who was one of the most vociferous critics of Clinton’s adultery, was not only a serial adulterer but paid for his ex-wife to have an abortion when she became pregnant while they were having marital difficulties. He also left his first wife and their son nearly destitute. And oh yeah, he was also an adulterer with at least two of his wives.
Henry Hyde excused his extramarital affair (which ended the marriage of the married woman he was sleeping with) as “a youthful indiscretion”. (He was 40 at the time.) Helen Chenoweth denied ever having an affair with a married man (there were in fact at least two) when confronted with it at the time, calling it “a vicious lie”, but then later remembered that oh yeah, she had had some affairs with married men after all, but that was alright because "“I’ve asked for God’s forgiveness, and I’ve received it.”
I neither know nor care if it’s destructive to you or your loved ones. I never said it was destructive IN ALL CASES, did I?
The fact that Bennett has preached Scriptural based virtues when all scriptures preach moderation and that excessive wealth is a dangerous pursuit is enough in and of itself to make him a hypocrite. And you’ve apparently never lived with an addict (and Bennett has referred to himself as an addict to gambling) if you think that the only way addiction hurts a family is monetary.
How many millions more did he have to lose to consider it excessive?
why would that strike you as odd?
“fucking lunatic left fringe” ===> me===> centrists===> Rational righ==>“frothing freaky right”
You said:
That’s a sweeping statement. It’s up to you to provide a qualifier if your intention was to say that’s it’s destructive only in some cases - a sentiment with which I agree, of course.
Now his WEALTH makes him a hypocrite, too?!?
BWAHAHAHA!!
Stick with one story.
This is a classic example of strawman argumentation. You are assigning your own interpretation to Scripture, and then calling Bennett a hypocrite when he doesn’t live up to it.
You point to a statement of Bennett’s - not yours - that condemns the pursuit of “excessive wealth,” and I’ll concede you may have a point. But you can’t trot your own version of what Scripture means out here and then chastise Bennett for his failure to live up to it. Nor can you quote lines of Scripture in an effort to find his hypocriscy. Bennett, a Catholic, presumably believes that Scripture is interpreted properly by the Church, in light of Holy Tradition.
** Bricker** was does living a life of virture mean? What does it mean to you? If I blow millions of dollars when I know that money could help others; can I claim to be an advocate of virture?
If I lost $8 million, it would be excessive. If I lost $8,000, it wouldn’t be excessive.
If Bill Gates lost $80 million, it wouldn’t be excessive.
Bennet was able to maintain a comfortable, upper-middle-class lifestyle for his family, not default on any loans, sell of any personal property, or otherwise evince any sign of financial trouble. So for him, $8 million over the years was not excessive.
The answer to your question depends on the circumstances of the person in question.
Depends on what you’re touting as “virtue.” If you are inveighing against any accumulation of personal wealth, insisting that all excess must be given to the poor, then I’d say you’ve pretty well crossed you self-defined line of virtue.
Of course, Bill Bennett didn’t do that.
I don’t personally see any barrier to spending your money - even millions of it - gambling and also being a virtuous person. I don’t think it’s a quality I’d regard as saintly, but it’s certainly not sinful. And in any event, the question here is neither virture nor saintliness – it is HYPOCRISY. We may debate at length the presence or absence of Bennett’s virtue; what I am saying is that he does not belong on a list of HYPOCRITES.
When someone “loses” money gambling, that money isn’t actually lost in a pit or something. It’s shoveled right back into the economy.
I think he’s a damned fool for gambling that much money away, but I think gamblers are damned fools to start with. How much he loses is pretty immaterial to me. Some people can’t afford to lose a dollar.
Hogwash. There’s a large number of Bible passages which claim that great wealth is a blessing from God. Here’s a short description of the patriarch Abraham’s “blessings” from Genesis 13:
[sup]1[/sup]So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. [sup]2[/sup] Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.
Here’s another - Genesis 24:
[sup]34[/sup] So he said, "I am Abraham’s servant. [sup]35[/sup] The LORD has blessed my master abundantly, and he has become wealthy. He has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, menservants and maidservants, and camels and donkeys.
Your charity needs a donation. Instead of giving it to you, I lose it on a hard-eight. At what point do you believe the ecomony will shovel back the donation?
Posted again for Bricker’s benefit: *
""When reminded of studies that link heavy gambling to divorce, bankruptcy, domestic abuse, and other family problems he has widely decried, Bennett compared the situation to alcohol.
“I view it as drinking,” Bennett says. “If you can’t handle it, don’t do it.”*
So Bennett, a figure heavily identified with preaching morality and who virtually made a second career of imparting standards of righteousness to the masses, is sending this message: If you can “handle it” (and how often do practitioners of bad habits/vice fool themselves on this one?), go right on ahead.
Flaming hypocrisy to anyone not wearing partisan blinders.
I see you’ve not read the Book of Virtues.
NO!
What does “hypocrisy” mean?
That advice may be very poor – as you correctly point out, many practitioners of bad habits/vice fool themselves on this issue. It shows that Bennett had a terribly inefficient message to send.
BUT IT IS NOT HYPOCRISY, unless he, himself, couldn’t handle it.
Tough shit for my charity, I guess, but it’s your money after all, so who the fuck am I to say how you’re supposed to spend it?
If someone is loaded and wants to gamble it away, why is that immoral? No charity has the right to anyone’s money.
I have read it. I own it.
There’s not one story in there that condemns gambling.
I don’t think I’m wearing partisan blinders. I suppose I could be, since I was accused of being a right-winger just yesterday.
I simply view hypocrisy as a very specific action, not a general one.
Well, let’s see who else we can add to the list:
-John Lennon sang eloquently of love and understanding, yet he abandoned his oldest son, Julian, once he got hooked up with that nutjub, Yoko.
-
Mr. Environmentalist Bobby Kennedy, who is an advocate for “green” energy such as windmill farms, rallied against a plan to build windmill farms off Nantucket Sound…where Mr. Kennedy happened to own beachfront property.
-
Democrats David Geffen and Steven Spielberg have been sued for roping off property in front of their Malibu homes in order to stop the public from walking along that stretch of beach. I just love these champions of the “little people.”
P.S. Similar attempts by wealthy homeowners abutting the Great Lakes have failed in their respective state’s Supreme Courts.